Folks, I cannot put it any simpler than this. Imagine a baseball game in which all the players played between home plate, second base, first base, and from center field, right-center field, and far right field. It would be a harder game to watch, and it’s hard enough to sit through already. That is the state of America’s national discourse and decision-making. Perhaps it’s always been the default setting on which the US was built four centuries ago.

Crop of PNC Park (as metaphor for the political state of the US), Pittsburgh, PA, July 20 2005 (alpineinc via Wikipedia/Flickr). Released to public domain via CC-SA-3.0.

One of the more optimist points that Michael Moore attempted to make in his books Stupid White Men (2001) and Dude, Where’s My Country? (2003) was that he saw that, after all, the US was a center-left nation. Moore’s evidence came from polls suggesting that most Americans would support gun control legislation and gay marriage, were pro-choice and peace doves. His wasn’t the only White progressive voice trying to flip the script on some of the media’s narrative that the US has and remains mostly center-right politically and ideologically. Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and a host of comedians-turned-news-makers have similar points in words or deeds over the past two decades.

The problem is, they are dead wrong. The US really is center-right. Why? Because polls are but a snapshot of people and their thinking. It’s a moment where people may put on their best selves, and frequently skew their attitudes toward more forward-thinking ideals, even if they don’t believe them. Polls are about as accurate as a Soviet/Iraqi Scud missile from the First Gulf War. And they’re also about as worthless.

The media contributes to this delusion of center-left by portraying everything as if there are two sides to it. CNN, MSNBC, the major mainstream networks, even FOX News frames everything between liberal and conservative, as if 160 million people belong to one side or the other. While the best arguments on most issues tend to be left-of-center, they aren’t the best just because of one’s ideology. Most left-of-center arguments contain nuance and context, two things that have been anathema in the world of mainstream corporate media for at least a generation.

Since the press presents everything from agricultural subsidies to zoo protections as an either-or, left-or-right, good-or-bad, nuance and context are missing in action, like whole grain from Wonder Bread. So really, if there are any differences in argument, they are in degree. Being pro-choice with a plethora of restrictions is a centrist argument, not a leftist one. Being for some regulation of military-style rifles and guns is a centrist argument. Wanting to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour — the equivalent of the minimum wage in the mid-1990s — is a centrist argument.

Most scholars have it correct when they say that the Democratic Party has lurched to the right over the past forty years. That lurch kicked in big time during the Bill Clinton years. The corporate mainstream media during the DNC Convention in Philadelphia has discussed the “left-wing” of the Democratic Party all week. But they have it wrong. This so-called left-wing is really just “less centrist.”

Nothing proved this more than last night’s competing chants during Leon Panetta’s speech. “No more war!” was quickly drowned out by the narcissistic chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” These are the same chants repeated by RNC delegates in Cleveland the week before. Both chants were meant to shut up those handful of folk committed to something other than getting in line with a political process or their party’s nominee. Both chants basically said to anyone who is truly in left-center field or further left than that to “shut the hell up.” The tone and rhetoric of the two parties may be different — and stances on cultural issues may be as well. But overall, the state of the American belief in the plutocratic/oligarchic nature of our democracy and projection of American power remains strong.

A screenshot of Beavis and Butt-head as seen on ''Celebrity Deathmatch', November 15, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deathmatchb%26b.PNG. Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws, and the stricter requirements of Wikipedia's non-free content policies, because: The image is being used in an informative way and should not detract from the show.

If MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatchwere still on the air, how well would it play in our uncertain and fear-mongered times? As an occasional betting man, the hilariously gruesome claymation standby would play well these days, especially if it were done as a SNL skit or as part of a Comedy Central routine. We’ve had so much furor recently over the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, Juan Williams and FOX News and Muslims, Keith Olbermann not asking permission to make campaign contributions from MSNBC, Rachel Maddow interviewing Jon Stewart in a black ops room. It seems to me that we need a new Celebrity Deathmatch series. Except that this one should just have journalists, commentators and politicians.

The theme music should be Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry,” with a two-pound, barely seared steak slammed down on a pearly white china plate, just so the blood can splatter and flow freely. The words “If it bleeds it leads — whether liberal or conservative!” scrolling across the screen. Let the folks who host

Pic of Bloody Rare Steak, November 15, 2010. http://davidwadegourmet.com/images/rare_steak.jpg. Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because this photo is only being used for illustrative purposes.

WWE or MMA do the play-by-play for the matches, with Alan Colmes in as a more than occasional analyst.

It would be a spectacle well before the actual matches. Who would be the big draws? I’d start with Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly. The pre-match taunts would be beyond funny. Olbermann: “By the time this match is all over, the world will know that Bill-O The Clown really doesn’t have a brain!” O’Reilly: “That sonofabitch wouldn’t stand a chance against a working-class stiff like me!” But then the fight would begin. O’Reilly would get in a few punch, before Olbermann would turn on a gigantic fan with a stack of 20,000 pieces of paper in front of it. The thousands of paper cuts would gash O’Reilly so much that the top of his head would come off. Then, lo and before, the world would learn that Olbermann was right — O’Reilly really doesn’t have a brain!

Other draws for me would be Jon Stewart vs. Bill Maher, Rush Limbaugh vs. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), and Glenn Beck vs. Rick Sanchez or Ed Schultz. One not-so-under undercard I wouldn’t mind seeing would be Rachel Maddow vs. Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN). That would be a rolling-on-the-floor-with-laughter event. Maddow would wipe the floor with Bachman — literally face-first. But not before Bachman would make Maddow angry by breaking her geeky glasses early in the match.

The one thing that I would change about this Celebrity Deathmatch format is that there would be a playoff system, where there would be a final eight, leading to seven matches worthy of the Highlander series award known as “There can be only one.” An epic struggle that would involve boring opponents to death with speeches and monologues, with endless questions about media and objectivity, along with participants smashing each other in their heads with dictionaries and microphones.

I think that this version would sell. I can see it now. Millions of viewers gathering in front of HD TVs and iPhones, at bars and in arenas, watching week after week and season after season. Heck, I’d watch it even if FOX News was the home of this series. Even if it meant watching Joy Behar beat Nancy Grace to a pulp!

There's also a Kindle edition on Amazon.com. The enhanced edition can be read only with Kindle Fire, an iPad or a full-color tablet. The links to the enhanced edition through Apple's iBookstore and the Barnes & Noble NOOK edition are below. The link to the Amazon Kindle version is also immediately below: